Interview series - Part 2: APAC CEO Chong-Win Lee shares regional trends from the 2024 Logicalis CIO Report

Australia, Sep 8, 2024

In this post, Antoinette Georgopoulos, Content and Communications Manager at Logicalis Australia, continues her interview with Chong-Win Lee (Win), CEO of Logicalis Asia Pacific. Win is sharing his thoughts about the regional trends and results from the Logicalis Global CIO Report for 2024.  

You can catch up on part one of his interview here.  

Last year, more than 86% of CIOs surveyed across APAC experienced at least one cyber-attack that targeted their organisation. What are the common security themes you’re seeing emerge across the region? 

Win: It was a busy year for cybercriminals, but also activists too. With several conflicts and unrest occurring around the world, we’re seeing more cyber-attacks occur with political motivations. Our CIO Report listed fraud, hacktivism or defacement, ransomware, extortion and crypto jacking as the top types of cybersecurity incidents reported across the region over the past year.  

We’re keeping a close eye on these types of threats as they develop in real time through our Security Operations Centres (SOC). We have five SOCs across Asia Pacific and recently upgraded our SOC in Malaysia. We continually monitor internet sites, social media and the dark web for relevant chatter to stay across threats as they surface and warn our customers in advance.  

Many industries such as financial services now have a mandate to run their own SOC or outsource this to a trusted third party like Logicalis. Through our proactive security operations, we’ve been helping customers mitigate, monitor and recover from attacks including denial of service or ransomware attacks.  

Another emerging theme is around cyber resiliency. When these attacks do happen, the speed, scale and ability to recover is vital to minimise impact to the wider business. That’s where we come in. Our managed services teams have deep experience to guide customers through the recovery process. We also provide immutable backup solutions that can help customers recover quickly.  

When it comes to security, much of the focus is about prevention and addressing vulnerabilities right from the start. As such, we’re also seeing a trend towards DevSecOps. This adds a security layer to DevOps where security testing is embedded earlier on. It’s also referred to as a “shift left” practice, where testing, quality and performance evaluation occurs earlier in development.

We’re helping many customers throughout APAC to implement a shift left culture, and we’re using insights from our SOC to help customers mitigate the latest threat trends earlier in their development cycle.  

And finally, how are CIOs tracking with sustainability across the region? 

Win: A big part of the challenge when it comes to sustainability for organisations is finding clarity around their carbon footprint as it relates to scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. These include emissions from the assets they own, the energy required to use them and the indirect emissions throughout their value chain. This includes the use and disposal of products from their suppliers.  

Data centres and IT environments already make up a sizeable amount of all global emissions and are seen as critical for organisations to meet their sustainability goals. In our latest report, 93% of CIOs in APAC agree that IT is critical for sustainability success. Moreover, 88% of CIOs already have clear carbon reduction targets for IT operations. Many organisations still struggle to uncover the big picture of their current carbon footprint from IT, let alone evaluate the impact of their future technology decisions.

Logicalis helps to provide better carbon emission calculations for both these scenarios, by leveraging APIs from key manufacturers. With these, we can help customers determine the impact of their technology decisions. For example, if they were to shift certain workloads to the cloud, we can show them what their emissions will look like to help them make more informed decisions.  

It's encouraging to see that 99% of CIOs surveyed across APAC are already involved in sustainability planning and target setting, with almost two-thirds seeing their role as integral to the process. We all have an important role to play as we each move towards net zero and sustainable operations. 

Thanks for your time, Win. It has been great to hear your thoughts about how AI, security and sustainability are shaping up throughout the APAC region. We hope you’ve enjoyed your time here in Australia. 

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